That ‘something’ was hard to define. The house was so still, so lacking in visual clutter or noise other than the wind bashing outside and the odd creak within, that you could forget it completely – and, being unfamiliar, there were no reminders of tasks undone or memories of important moments to distract you. Even the views, long and spare – no houses or people to be seen – were restful. We could sit together comfortably, the house and the people in it a mere backdrop.
That day it was Lyndsey who came to find me when I failed to turn up for supper – standing beside me, as Loxton had, until I flinched at the sudden awareness of her.
They’d been betting, she said, on how long it would take me to realise they’d all disappeared: Tyler and Mei had suggested the longest time. I was taken aback, disconcerted, then confessed that blocking things out had never been a problem. Stuck between brothers who were always rampaging, you learnt to ignore them. Lyndsey said that, as the only one, she was more used to being on her own, but she too could create an invisible bubble when she was working. Everyone said that I’d been like that wherever I sat, just like Loxton.
That also took me off guard. I didn’t like the idea of being discussed – or of being identified with my co-host.
Lyndsey said she preferred her faculty library to the College equivalent, where there was too much activity, and she liked to sit with people who didn’t know each other, as there was none of that intrusive passing of messages, but nothing was a patch on Carreck Loose. With that, at least, I agreed.
*
In the kitchen a general rowdiness was taking over.
Perhaps because it was day three, there was another bout of testing of the boundaries. The idea of the trip to the pub surfaced again in the heat of the curry and the zing of the ginger, and failed to be dampened by dollops of Priyam’s cucumber raita. Probably the modest amount of beer that Hugh had got past Loxton loosened tongues and created an appetite for more – adventure included. The plan was now to take the vans to the end of the drive and then, because most of us hadn’t actually walked that day, to do the rest on foot. I didn’t hear the proposal being put to Loxton, who was halfway down the other side of the table, but I caught the conversation that followed, alerted by the insistent questioning. Gloria could sound quite like Chloe.
‘So there’s no objection, then? No reason why we shouldn’t go?’
Loxton’s expression changed to one I’d seen before when he thought a line of argument rather cheap, a rhetorical cliché; something about the mouth conveyed a tinge of dismay. It was a look I’d also seen on the Warden’s face, in Governing Body, when he didn’t like what a colleague had said – some were left floundering; others were goaded into aggressive repetition.
‘We haven’t had an outing of that kind before,’ Loxton said, sucking his pipe: three little intakes that allowed him to focus on the bowl and whether the tobacco was drawing properly, a delaying tactic that was also now familiar. He would be considering whether the absence of a precedent was material, whether the proposition could be examined on its merits.
By now, it felt as if all thirteen of us were waiting, hushed, to hear the outcome.
Chloe, who must have drunk more than her share of the beer, could take it no longer. ‘But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go, does it? I mean, we don’t always have to do the things that people have done before.’ She scanned the row of faces opposite her, stopped at mine and spurted out: ‘It’s not sacrosanct.’
‘Of course not,’ I said, before there was time to think about it. ‘Traditions rarely are.’
Besides, what did Loxton imagine might happen? That they’d abscond? It was like the stories of dons who thought ‘infants’ would ensue the minute male and female students were allowed to cohabit. ‘Think of the consequences!’ one faction had reportedly said, horrified. It was laughable – we had to stick up for ourselves.
Gloria had just helped herself to another piece of Cheddar. She sat with her head down, moving crumbs round her plate with the point of her fork, not saying anything. Opposite her, Rupert was smiling. I wondered if they were playing footsie under the table, leaving the rest of us to fight her corner. It was the sort of scene the Dean had conjured up.
Martin was quick to pile in. ‘We don’t have to drive, if that’s the problem.’ He looked round the table, as if he, too, was calculating support. ‘We could walk the whole way, there and back. It would make up for playing football.’
Loxton was still fiddling with his pipe, head tilted down, the brain computing. He didn’t fill the gap.
Next to me Jim tilted back in his chair, watching. On his far side Priyam too observed, unexpectedly mute. Tyler, sitting beyond her, turned back to his plate and cored his apple, balancing the pieces carefully, silent. That was frustrating, when he might have chipped in: did he never risk anything? Perhaps the Rhodes Scholars really were goody two shoes.
Eddie leant across Gloria to grab the cheeseboard. ‘Sounds cool.’ He cut a hunk and passed it on around the table. ‘A jaunt, together. There must be torches somewhere.’
‘Or a moon. It’s not a full moon, but there’s a moon out there; I saw it earlier, sitting on its side.’ Lyndsey leapt up to pull back the curtain – she could have been a child of seven or eight. ‘There! We can “dance by the light of the moon”.’
Loxton put his tamper down by his plate and turned to me.
‘Sarah?’
Typical! It must have been the third time that I’d been asked to pronounce, to give the decisive view, so he didn’t have to. And why drop the ‘Dr This’ and ‘Dr That’ in front of the students now, as if he and I were suddenly allies?
‘I don’t see why not,’ I said. ‘Martin can introduce us to the local beers. Let’s take it to the max.’
Loxton snuffed his pipe with a brisk prod. He stood up, pushing his chair back so sharply that it jerked against the stickiness of the linoleum. There was a grimace as he looked down behind him; then he carried on.
‘So be it. I dare say the kitty can stretch to another round. All hands to the deck here and then we’ll go. I’ve no problem with firsts – for that matter, we’ve never had home-made buns before – but I don’t want any stragglers on the way there or coming back.’ He glanced about to check the students had got his meaning and tapped the table with the ball of his pipe. ‘Chop-chop. Who’s washing up?’
It took a while to find the torches. By the time Barnaby and Priyam came back, triumphant – Barnaby holding a searchlight aloft while Priyam dangled a couple of pocket torches by their cords – we’d just finished putting things away. There was a moment when everyone was waiting for everyone else; and then a scramble as we all headed for our coats and made for the door at the same time, as if to stop anyone changing their mind.
Outside, the air was almost balmy, moist with dew rather than cold and frosty. It had been another complete change, starting wet, then gusty, now still. Good weather for an evening stroll.
We set off in a genial gaggle, a single mass of people chatting together, enjoying the unexpected outing. By the time we’d got beyond the drive, the mass had shifted into two groups, both thumping awkwardly on the tarmac in the way you do going down a hill at slightly too brisk a pace. When the road levelled, the group in front spread out until they straddled it. Someone near the centre linked arms and leant forward, calling to the others to do likewise – Tyler, which was a surprise. A few more paces and they were all at it, forming an uneven line that stretched from one tall hedge to the other. There was a bit of skipping until they were walking in unison; laughter as the shortest struggled to maintain her stride.
Loxton and I hung back as the rest of our group copied the first and bounced on ahead of us. Then at the front there was a shout of ‘Car!’, the arms unfurled and we all stepped to the side to let a lone vehicle through. After that, we stayed in twos and threes – small bobbing clumps of darkness amidst the slaty hues.
The pub was in the centre of the village, a few doors from the shop I’d visited w
ith Eddie, the light from its frosted windows draining colour from any uncurtained windows elsewhere. In the smoke-filled public bar, chosen because of our boots, we were a large and conspicuous group standing around debating where to sit. The space by the dartboard was already taken, and we were lucky that two elderly men moved along unprompted so we could have a pair of tables to ourselves.
Loxton and I sorted the orders with the help of Martin, who was suitably knowledgeable about the Cornish ales, and Hugh, who ferried glasses to the corner our group had adopted. As the two of us leant against the bar chatting, relegated to onlooker status, I wondered when Loxton might last have been in such a setting – it was hardly his natural milieu. But he told me that he and a colleague who lived near him had met in their local for a gin and tonic every Thursday for years. He was typically exact about it, calculating that, as they normally had a couple each, he would have drunk roughly 2,600 measures since they began. What kind of brain chooses to make such a calculation? It was on a par with his ability to cite intriguing facts about a given date, also on display that evening. Apparently the fifteenth, the Ides of March, wasn’t only the day of Julius Caesar’s stabbing but also of George Washington’s great speech against the Newburgh conspirators and of Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia. How did he remember such things? I certainly couldn’t compete, even on my own territory, but then I’d never have been sent by the intelligence services to Bletchley Park. That required a singular mind.
It was a relief when Hugh came back and I could sit with the rest of our gang.
After that it can’t have been much more than half an hour before the publican called for last orders, but in the absence of the sobering influence of darts, part of our group contrived to down a couple of double whiskies apiece, relegating the beer to the status of chaser, and became pretty merry.
I should have paid more attention, or listened harder to the Dean: both, probably. I’d allowed myself to get distracted, enjoying another conversation.
The main culprits seemed to be Martin, who had introduced them to what he called the local ‘boilermaker’, and Rupert, who ignored a glance from Loxton and airily funded another round just before drinking-up time. Whatever the case, it was Chloe who helped herself to unfinished tumblers and ended up the worst cut, with Eddie close behind. She sat at an angle on the edge of the plastic banquette, deep in garrulous talk with him, periodically making large gestures that threatened to thwack anyone who was rash enough to get in their way, while Gloria and Rupert bent closer together at the end of the bench, the other side of Tyler and me. When we all stood up it was Chloe who misjudged her footing, landing in a mess on the floor with a raucous ‘Oops-a-daisy!’ that must have been heard by everyone, and it was Martin rather than Eddie who helped her to her feet. Rupert continued to the door, holding it open for Gloria as if nothing was happening, least of all anything to do with him. It was left to Mei and Jim – together again! – to help Loxton and me pile the empties back on the bar.
At such moments the difference in age – five years or so – seemed like a chasm rather than a matter of degree: it was aeons since I’d last set out to get smashed in that way, although in my time I’d done it too. But I still didn’t pay much attention. It was only a few drinks – nothing exceptional – and we’d all enjoyed ourselves.
We set off back up the road, joking about hobgoblins and whether our fingers would fall off in the cold, and soon enough we’d all spread out and my mind was elsewhere.
Tyler and I were somewhere in the middle of the group, trailing the front runners and ahead of the rump. We’d picked up the conversation we’d begun in the pub about the business of ‘growing up’ – more lighthearted than any we’d had before, on a par with the flirty one by Magdalen Bridge – and had started joshing more personally, about whether he was the archetypal only child and me the classic middle one. There was a lovely moment when he paused to look at me and I did the same to him, swinging round mid-step and fired up with the repartee, ready to launch another rejoinder. It was a bit like Gloria and Rupert in the car, just before she pretended to pummel him.
That was when I registered we were probably out of sight, alone for the very first time. What difference that might have made I’m not sure: it’s one thing to suggest you take responsibilities too seriously, as we had when walking back from Magdalen; quite another to do anything about it. I barely knew him – what was I thinking of?
We weren’t given a chance to find out. Suddenly Martin came puffing up behind us in the darkness, coatless, to say that Chloe had puked into the hedgerow and couldn’t get up.
Of course we did exactly what was expected of us – we could hardly do otherwise. Tyler volunteered to run the rest of the way up the hill for help, disappearing up the slope into the blackness until the sound of him was lost amidst the breeze and the hedgerows, and I went back down again with Martin, the little torch splaying light feebly ahead, to check how bad Chloe was. The moment had gone.
When we reached her, Chloe was slumped with her lower back against the steep bank where hedge merged into grass and ivy, legs braced against the camber of the tarmac, head lolling forward towards her knees. Eddie, meanwhile, was crouched unstably on the far side of her, pale in the darkness, shivering as he groaned that they would get a real bollocking now. Beyond that, there was just the smell of damp earth and crushed greenery.
Poor girl. I squatted down on the near side, lifted the greatcoat back onto Chloe’s shoulders, tucked the strands of hair away from her cheeks and checked her forehead: still clammy. When Eddie resumed his lamentations, Martin told him to ‘shut the fuck up’ – the priority was fetching transport and blankets. Chloe would be fine.
That of course was true. We’d all been there before, had too much to drink and then recovered our stomachs and our dignity – it really wasn’t an issue. In fact, in other circumstances it might have seemed funny, a predictable rite of passage. But somehow making a joke of it wouldn’t do in Cornwall. With Loxton around we had to have a fuss. Uncharitably, I reflected that you could be all for interesting women – my research was full of them – but find this sort of thing a nuisance with men like him to witness it.
After what seemed an age – it was horribly cold and we were going numb – we heard the shuddering of the van and then saw its lights appearing around the bend of the lane. Loxton parked just beyond us, came out with his silly first-aid box, swapped a few terse words with me and waited grimly by the back door as we got Chloe to her feet, slumped against Eddie but with Martin taking the bulk of her weight. It was only a few steps to the rear of the van, but they were awkward and the boys’ muttered instructions all too loud in the emptiness. Then it was Tyler’s turn, now inside, to help Chloe onto the rear bank of seats. Nobly, he sat between her and the window, where he was a buffer as she flopped sideways. The rest of us climbed in behind. Loxton took us lurching down in search of the next turning, reversed into it and then drove us jerkily back up the hill, changing gears at every opportunity.
Inside the van you couldn’t get away from what had happened. Chloe had straightened up in her seat, turning away from Tyler to lean on me instead. She was awkwardly positioned, a heavy press of body giving off heat and moisture, her lank hair a little too close to my face, a rancid smell lingering somewhere. Tyler and I exchanged rueful glances and concentrated on keeping her upright; Martin and Eddie were atypically mute; Loxton too was silent, hunched over the wheel. Chloe, needless to say, was not. By the time we got back to the house, she was properly vocal – cross rather than embarrassed. ‘Shit, I hate whisky,’ she complained.
We parked by the front door and Loxton waited in the driving seat while we got her to her feet, Eddie and Martin backing out of the van in case she crumpled forwards, while I followed with Tyler, keeping the coat in place. Chloe allowed them to help her down the step and across the short crunch of gravel but then pushed them away in the hall with an irritated, ‘Fuck off, will you?’ Pausing next to me at the bottom of the s
tairs, one hand on the big wooden ball at the end of the handrail, she gripped my arm and the two of us started slowly up to the first floor. At the half landing we stopped to look up at Gloria, emerging from the room that Rupert shared. There was an exasperated, ‘Oh God, what’s she done now?’ and then Gloria came down to take over from me, arms out, like a mother handed a tiresome child.
Upstairs, their bit of the attic was a tip, even after three days. Clothes were strewn across the floor on Chloe’s side: used underwear was chucked against the wall; a box of Tampax blared its colours. Gloria’s was little better: a satin dressing gown, spoiled with creases, lay underneath some jumpers; a drawstring bag spewed its contents. An air of abandon, which might have been glorious but actually was sordid, seemed to infect every corner. The mess was disproportionate, the smell of smoke stale.
We set Chloe down on her bed and then Gloria moved around, tossing a couple of pillows in her direction, tugging the covers where they trailed on the floor, issuing instructions in weary parental mode, while I stood back, a dirty ashtray in my hand. Chloe was monosyllabic, like a resentful teenager. She sat on the edge of the mattress, waiting for help in lifting her poncho over her head and then discarded it, inside out, in the direction of the piles.
‘Where are my fags?’ she asked.
‘With luck, downstairs, where they are meant to be and where this is going,’ I answered, raising the offending ashtray. Still, I offered to make her a sweet tea, as Jenny had once done for me in our schooldays. There was no reply.
On my return, Chloe was leaning against the pillows in a large white t-shirt with a black-and-red picture of Che Guevara, her face washed – still sallow, a few strands of hair sticking to her skin – watching Gloria close the little curtains. I put the mug down, picked up the damp flannel and stood by the door.
‘There’s no need to hang about,’ Chloe said dismissively, shifting her legs under the covers and patting the surface beside them. ‘Gloria’s seen me be sick before.’
The Reading Party Page 15